Even before the start of the 2020 global health crisis and the pivot to remote and home working, enterprises were increasingly seeking out safe, enterprise-class global workplace videoconferencing systems. COVID has accelerated this process with the dawn of permanent, widespread ‘hybrid’ working environments. But hybrid doesn’t just apply to when workers are physically ‘sitting’ in their offices. It also applies to the applications they use, and the network infrastructure they will rely on in the future. These two combined creates a lucrative B2B enterprise opportunity in the form of Session Border Control-as-a-Service.
A session border controller (SBC), at its simplest, is a network device that secures Voice-over-IP (VoIP) infrastructure while providing interworking between incompatible signaling messages and media flows (sessions) from end devices or application servers. Enterprises can deploy their own SBCs, but as Unified Communications (UC) and IP traffic has grown, enterprises are increasingly looking to service providers to manage the complexity of real-time communications for them – which includes protecting and assuring sensitive network boundaries through Session Border Control-as-a-Service (SBCaaS). And there are many reasons why.
SBCaaS – to Meet Changing Capacity Requirements
The use of VoIP in the enterprise setting will soon become standard. However, as this shift happens, the scalability of VoIP will soon be tested. While VoIP can be shared with internet connections, this doesn’t really scale to meet enterprise needs. This will be further exasperated for the many businesses who still depend on older technologies. ISDN networks will be shutting down over the next two to three years, and many enterprises depend upon IDSN links (E1 and T1 connections) to provide them a guaranteed number of channels for supporting simultaneous calls. As a result, interest in SIP-Trunking is rising rapidly, driven by its lower cost, ability to scale, and ability to provide the sufficient capacity and quality with a dedicated link to the service provider. That means that going forward, the only way to offer secure, managed connectivity for SIP-based and UC-style services will be with an SBC.
SBCaaS – to Support UC Applications
Hybrid working has seen the rising use of Unified Communications (UC) platforms such as Microsoft Teams. But, from a network interoperability standpoint, Microsoft Teams is an island. Often, its users want to communicate with it using different media, communication channels, and devices, including regular land lines or mobiles. To bring this mix into the Teams environment, Microsoft has enabled breakout to landline and mobile phones. But this creates a security risk because such calls will cross network boundaries. Consequently, breakout is only possible if an approved, Microsoft-certified SBC is in place to protect the network borders. Teams Direct Routing (TDR) enables enterprise users to ‘break out’ of the Teams silo but requires a carrier network to handle it. Bridging the Teams-external world/network gap is not the only benefit a SCB can offer an enterprise customer. They are also extremely useful for improving security, beyond the standard firewall, as SBCs can block intruders at the video and audio stream level. SBCs are essential for countering Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) attacks but are also able to block Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed DoS (DDoS) attacks too.
SBCaaS – to Future-Proof Enterprise Services
Different communications services often use different signaling and media formats. For example, the various generations of mobile networks use different codecs. So, when calls and sessions are made across different networks, the codecs need to be aligned. SBCs take care of this – but they need a roadmap to ensure they can be updated to support any newer codecs that are introduced. The same applies to different signaling methods. In essence, an SBC is a gateway as well as a border protection element, but it can be extremely complex for an enterprise to maintain and ensure compatibility across networks and protocols, especially as network technology continues to evolve.
The Enghouse SBC offers:
- Secure, scalable IP-to-IP connectivity,
- Message interworking,
- Any-to-any codec transcoding,
- Topology hiding,
- Firewall and overload protection,
- Dynamic blacklisting, and
- Multiple encryption options for protecting service and network integrity.
It allows service providers to offer security as an integral element of their managed services portfolio, providing the reassurance enterprises need and relieving them of the burden of keeping pace with what is a fast-moving target.
Download our whitepaper to learn more on how service providers can capture the lucrative Session Border Control-as-a-service (SBCaaS) revenue opportunity with enterprises.
